


Busking in the Warmth of your Timbre

by starri



Category: B.A.P, K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Busker!Himchan, Busking, M/M, Multi, Slice of Life, Sweet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 14:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3854278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starri/pseuds/starri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the way he sits, Yongguk decides, the way he arches over his guitar as if in comfortable contemplation, head nodding fractionally so that his bangs twitches to the beat his toes tap out. But it’s more than that. It’s also the way his face is half obscured by the tilt of his head, the way his eyes are closed, slumbering on the notes his fingers brush from the strings, and his lips that open with every exhale and the back of his hands that proudly bare instrument scars. </p><p>BUSKER AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Conduction

There is a small crowd gathered around the busker despite the rain, and Yongguk stops to admire the intricacy with which the raindrops patter in counterpoint to the steady guitar thrumming. He stands at the back of the small crowd, content with just listening, but after a while the absence of a voice to accompany the strings tickles his curiosity. It is unusual for a crowd to gather – huddled under the drizzle no less – for an instrumentalist.

 

The man in front of him moves away, and-

 

If Yongguk is a painter, he would paint this scene. No wonder this man can hold a crowd with simple thrumming.

 

It’s the way he sits, Yongguk decides, the way he arches over his guitar as if in comfortable contemplation, head nodding fractionally so that his bangs twitches to the beat his toes tap out. But it’s more than that. It’s also the way his face is half obscured by the tilt of his head, the way his eyes are closed, slumbering on the notes his fingers brush from the strings, and his lips that open with every exhale and the back of his hands that proudly bare instrument scars.

 

The picture is completed by the rain. The busker sits under a protruding shop sign, just the tiniest fraction out of the falling drops, but they dampen the edges of his sleeves and drum against his boots, beautiful tiny discords that gently beckon to Yongguk’s attention, and hold it with their wonderful imperfection.

 

Then, Yongguk notices the other things, the things that are not quite right. The man’s guitar looks too professional, obviously customized; his clothes are expensive, bundled warmly against his chest and tightly around his thighs. He wears earrings, fashionable ones that glint under his neatly styled hair. This man isn’t busking for money. He’s just, busking. Sitting and thrumming for anyone that may want to listen.

 

Perhaps that’s why the crowd gathered for him. Perhaps they feel they are not cheating to enjoy the music.

 

A small child is tugging on her mother’s hand, wobbling adorably and pointing her tiny finger at the busker. Her mother sighs, annoyed but smiling, and kneels down to hear what her child has to say. After a brief and utterly serious debate, the child waddles up to the busker, and drops a coin in his half open guitar case.

 

The _plunk_ of the coin jolts the man from his musical reveries, and he opens his eyes and looks down at the child, surprised. Then he smiles, and Yongguk is amazed that a face so sharp can smile so softly.

 

The busker leans down, balances himself on one knee, oblivious to the rest of the crowd and the rain that is now ruining his hair, and bows to the girl theatrically. She giggles, and his smile widens, now cocky and mischievous.

 

“Thank you, my lady,” he says, ignoring the mother who is laughing and trying to pull her child back. “Would you like a song as thanks?”

 

“I want! I want!” The girl is picked up by her mother and rocked gently up and down, but her excitement is not dampened in the slightest. Yongguk chuckles, and realizes that he is part of the scene. They all are. Somehow the tiny crowd became an inmate audience – and the busker seems to float on it, riding the attention like woodwinds over bass lines, fleeting and bright and synergized.

 

He thrums again, launching into what appears to be a very acoustic version of Let It Go, and the girl shrieks with delight. He smoothly changes to the theme of some children’s show then to something that sounds like it came from a 90’s anime and then back to something else nostalgic – Aladdin, isn’t it? – and gives a final bow as the girl is extremely reluctantly carried away. A collective sigh emerges from the audience, followed by a collective chuckle.

 

“Thank you uncle!” The child yells half way down the street, most likely prompted by her mother who gives her a _good job_ pat on the head while trying to balance an umbrella at the same time.

 

“I’m too young to be an uncle!” The busker calls back airily, swallowing a laugh and going back to his sitting position and begins thrumming again. Something jazzy this time, a warmly descending cord that imitates the rain.

 

A few high school girls, blushing and giggling, drops coins into the guitar case before running off. The busker seems not to notice, but his head is tilted more now, like he’s hiding a smile.

 

The huddle becomes a cluster, becomes collections of twos and threes’ bystanders. People wander off to continue their lives, a few dropping a token of thanks. The _plunk plunk_ of coins adding a new, irregular beat, and Yongguk smiles. He feels connected, somehow. Here is a shared snippet out of a dozen stranger’s busy day that contains laughter and music and he was part of it, together with these anonymous, casual admirers. There’s something poetic about it, or perhaps it’s just the rain bringing out his whimsical side.

 

Yongguk debates if he should drop something too, he feels like he owes this man thanks for being the creator of a moment of shared joy on this drizzling day. He pats his pocket, coming up with only the small packet of cookies. Well, it’s unopened, so it should be okay.

 

He drops the packet into the guitar case, face already beginning to burn, and carefully makes his way down the street towards his bus stop. As he slips away, turning up his hood up against the drizzle, he wonders if the busker will be back again, thrumming on the street corner between his favourite tea shop and the nail salon his sister always visits.


	2. Anafront

He sees a familiar knot of bystanders across the road and smiles.

“Hyung? I thought we are going to the tea shop?”

Yongguk starts. He had moved towards the busker’s corner on autopilot, and Daehyun’s question leaves him slightly confused, hesitantly wavering on the pedestrian crossing. Daehyun’s questioning expression flickers into understanding as his gaze follow Yongguk’s indecision. Suddenly Daehyun has one hand on his forearm and another on the back of his elbow and the younger tugs him across the road, towards the cluster and the sound of strings, his lips parting into something between the ghost a snigger and the prelude to laugher.

 

The busker is there on odd days, Yongguk stands and listens whenever he has nothing urgent to do. Always at the back of the crowd, never for long. It’s a small secret, the fact that sometimes he listens to the same instrumentalist on his way back home from the studio. An insignificant and wonderfully innocent thing - that he sometimes stops for the same stranger and exchange a fraction of his life for a few bars of improvised melodies.

Still, a secret is always kept close to the heart, perhaps that’s why that organ begins to swell insistently against his ribs when Daehyun leads him towards the busker. Yongguk feels slightly, inexplicably betrayed, untethered. The busker had existed only on this street corner for Yongguk. Now, as Daehyun easily slips past the outer ring of people, taking Yongguk with him, he can feel his own sense of reality shifting to encompass Daehyun into the moment.

 

He’s right there, just half a metre away. Eyes closed as usual, he’s leaning lazily with his hip against the side of his little alcove, stamping a backbeat with the heel of his boot.

Today’s cords are familiar though. Not an improvisation, but-

“-don’t be afraid-“ Daehyun begins to sing.

The busker’s eyes snap open the same moment as Yongguk turns his surprised gaze to his companion. Daehyun’s lips turn up at the corners even as they shape themselves awkwardly over unfamiliar English syllables. His voice is warm and full, and it fills the spaces between the busker’s cords like a summer’s heat playing over a light rain shower. The busker’s fingers hold the tune, not a beat was dropped, but his eyes, his eyes are sharp with mischievous challenge.

“Don’t carry the world – upon your shoulders-“ Daehyun continues. He seems to glow under the admiring gazes of the audience, but his own gaze never left Yongguk’s busker, and there’s something there, a dare, a cheeky _I’ll show you mine if you show me yours_.

The busker is standing up straighter now, his expression matches Daehyun’s, and his fingers never ceased thrumming. Yongguk is transfixed by the performance – the competition – that drops each note clear and simple and perfect into the air for the passersby’s. The busker’s expression is one of expectant smugness, and Yongguk knows why. He’s heard this song often enough to know what’s coming.

Daehyun climbs the high riff with a beautiful vibrato, and the busker’s gaze _melts_.

**Author's Note:**

> as usual, have to do a sweet AU to balance out the angsty one yeee
> 
> the title is a pun. tell me I'm clever.


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